Thursday, July 24, 2008

Sometimes I get emails with questions like "are you really going to do this for a whole year?" "are you worried you're going to get bored?" "don't you go stir-crazy sometimes?"

I answer: yes, yes, and yes. But then I make something that I never would have attempted to make if it wasn't for this silly challenge, and it opens my mind to the endless possibilities of the crockpot and I re-commit to the insanity for at least another day.

Yesterday, my friends, I made mousse. The most delightfully wonderful chocolate mousse ever.

In the crockpot.

And when it worked I went out in the yard and did a back flip. Sort of. It was really more like a really bad cartwheel with a really bad landing, but the kids insisted it was a back flip. I'm kind of hopped up on Advil right now, actually...

and as soon as I hit publish, I'm going back to bed. With mousse. Today is going to rock.

I used a 4 qt round crockpot. If you use a larger one, your stuff will melt and cook faster; be aware.

In your crockpot, add the heavy cream, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and coffee. Whip until combined with a whisk. You don't need to go crazy, just mix it well. Add the two cups of chocolate chips.

Cover and cook on high for about an hour, or on low for about two. You are looking for little bubbles in the surface of the cream, and melted chocolate.

VERY VERY VERY VERY carefully, pour the mixture into a blender. You'll get about 2 1/2 to 3 cups of liquid. Blend on high until it "grows" to about 5 to 6 cups, and doesn't seem like it will rise any higher.

Pour into serving dishes.

Chill for 2 hours in the refrigerator. Top with whipped cream or berries, or nothing at all.

The Verdict.

It's not bad that I didn't let the kids have any because it had coffee in it, right? That doesn't make me mean, does it?They were already eating cake...

Adam said that this rivaled any restaurant mousse he's had. The Lewis family came over and they enjoyed it---and Carol let her kids have a taste because she is much nicer than I am.

Two things to note: the very top has a bit of a skin on it, and there are little bubbles that didn't pop during the cooling process. This kind of bothered me, but I was assured that I was the only one bothered.

51 comments:

That sounds delicious! And so easy too! This is why I love reading your blog, you try things I would never have dreamt could be done in a slowcooker. As for the skin thing, try pressing plastic wrap down on the surface of the mousse when you put it in the fridge, that stops the air getting to the mousse, and should (hopefully!) stop a skin forming.

I enjoy reading your posts so much!! So much so that I am trying to convince my husband to buy me a laptop so I can sit on the couch (I am 7 months pregnant with my third child- I like my couch!) and write all these super recipes down. (He's not convinced.) But I really want to try them all, especially this one!!

Oh, that looks and sounds divine! I honestly would have never thought to make mousse in the crock pot - I'm so glad you decided to do this challenge and blog about it - I've tried stuff in the crock pot that I wouldn't have thought of on my own, thanks to you! :-)

oooh yummy! I love mousse and I love that you found a way to do it in the crock pot. Awesome! I was asked to award 3 of my favorite blogs a "brilliant weblog" award and I definitely chose you! Check my blog for more details. Hopefully we can see what 3 blogs you pick and decide to award. Congrats to you!

Ok, as long as my whipping cream hasn't gone bad (I bought it a couple of weeks ago to make ice cream and never made it), I'm making this today! Can't wait to report my results!

And yes, once again, I am going to say THANK YOU for resolving to do this, AND for blogging about it (did you have a blog before?) AND for somehow miraculously ending up on Rachael Ray for it.....we are LOVING the whole crockpot thing! In the past 2 weeks we've only eaten out 1 time....and that was only because half of the family was out doing something different and weren't going to be home for dinner....and of those 13 dinner meals, 11 of them have been cooked in the crockpot! THANK YOU!!!!!!!! This week every dinner meal is in the crockpot....YAY!!!!! My hubby mentioned something about it last night....he said "So, with all of these crockpot meals, we are not only getting our dinner for that night, but leftovers for lunches and other meals....very smart" :) Thank you Stephanie! And thank you for introducing me to other websites, etc.

Oh, and I can't wait to try the gyros! I need to figure out where I can get ground lamb.....or ask my butcher if he will grind a boneless leg of lamb for me, and then I'll put the remaining ground lamb into the freezer. I think that those are going to be a BIG hit!

Steph,it's Casandra in Cleveland and I've got an urgent but off topic question for you. Do you think that you could pop all the raw ingredients for a CP recipe (something's that's just dump and go like Taco Soup) in a big zip lock bag and freeze it then put it in the CP and cook from frozen? I'm trying to make meals for a friend who's in the hospital. Yes, making CP meals and then freezing them would be easy but freezing the raw ingredients and cooking them would be EASIER. What do you think?

Cassandra, what a great idea! I think it will work just fine, but please keep in mind that it isn't recommended for the stoneware insert to have temperature "shocks"--- so maybe freeze the stuff, then put it in the fridge the night before, or out on the countertop for a while before using. I do use frozen meat quite often and have never had an issue, but I want to make sure that you (and others!) know about the shocking factor.

Ahhhhh Darn you for posting this on a day my Crockpot is filled!!! Is it sad that I was actually tempted to dump dinner out to make this???? OMG it looks wonderful! Ahh I guess I will make it tomorrow, as dinner is smelling good. And I am pretty sure I wont want to share the mouse, so my family wouldnt get dinner.... hmph :D

YUM-O! That mousse looks amazing and delicous, and I wish I had all of the ingredients RIGHT now, so that I could whip it up and eat it before my sweet hubby gets home from work. haha. :)

I wanted to say thanks also for posting on our cooking blog. I'm not sure if you'll even remember me, but I commented on your post for the Rachael Ray show, and I thought it was so sweet that you took the time to comment back on our blog, even though you received about a bagillion comments that day. That was really nice of you, and it made MY day! Just today, in fact, because I'm finally starting to blog about food again since I'm in the second trimester now. Woo hoo!

Hi there! That mousse looks delicious! I may have to try it with the dark chocolate like someone suggested, we don't drink coffee. I was looking around your site and didn't see that you've made an apple brown betty. They are good: http://www.sunshinerecipes.com/applebrownbetty.shtml Thanks for sharing all your pictures and recipes!

Stephanie, where you have you been all my life? Or, that is, where have you been for the last 206/7 days of my life? I'm going to drop down through your posts and explore possibilities. I love having at least one element of a meal on the counter just doing its thing so that I don't have that panicky feeling at the last minute when everything has to come together for a meal. If one thing--main dish, side dish, dessert--is burbling in the crockpot, I can focus on the other stuff without so much pressure.

hi there crockpot lady...i grew up with chocolate pudding (nothing as fancy as mousssse) and always thought the skin on the top was the best part. i think i still do, but i am going to have to try your recipe to remind my taste buds. keep going, girl. thanx

A friend emailed your blog the day after my stove went in the shop. How providential! Now, I read your blog every day. This mousse is the first of your recipes I've tried, WOW!!! Incredible! Of course, I'll have to try more, especially, the cheesecake! You are so inspiring! Thanks!

Can you use half and half instead of heavy cream? How about splenda instead of sugar, and egg beaters instead of yolks? Just trying to lighten it up a bit. I guess the real yolks would be okay, but if I could substitute the heavy cream and sugar, that would be great.

I had to thank you personally for this recipe. I have 4 eggs yolks sitting in my fridge right now, left over from a failed "protein pudding bar" experiment involving 4 egg whites. blech...

I was wondering what I could dig up to find a use for them, and bingo - your crockpot chocolate mousse is the jackpot! And, the crockpot being the main appliance involved makes it that much more euphoric.

This sounds excellent I will be making this tomorrow. Today I'm making peach cobbler in the crockpot. Thanks for giving me some great ideas in cooking and to all who comment for their tips they help as well.

When I pour this into my blender, I get way more than 3 cups of liquid... more like 5-6 cups. I blend it to make sure all the chocolate is mixed up, then I whip it in batches.

When you say that it "grows" to be about double the volumn...that's where I really deviate from the plan. The first time I made this, I used half and half, so I blamed the lack of "whipped"-ness on that. This time I used real heavy cream and still didn't get it to "whip up." It also takes my mousse way more than 2 hours to "set."

Don't get me wrong, it tastes delicious and I am going to keep making it no matter what (I might be slightly addicted, and besides, I just had to postpone my wedding because I have to have surgery so I really need this rich chocolatey goodness.) But what I am making is much more pudding-ish than mousse-ish.

I'm so sorry to hear about your upcoming surgery. It sounds like you're doing everything correctly. It may just be something simple like the not blending long enough or on high enough speed. we are lucky enough to have been given a Vitamix, so it gets blended in a very powerful fashion.

I'm not sure where the 5-6 cups liquid comes from, though. There's only 2 cups of cream, then 4 egg yolks, and 1/3 cup coffee. I'd think that would only give you a bit more than 3 cups, even with the melted chocolate chips.

I think I need to make this again----I haven't in over a year, and I worry I'm just not much help in answering your questions!

I tried this too and it just didn't seem to work. Mine was also more like 4 or 5 cups, so I put only half in the blender at a time to allow it to grow, but it just didn't grow. I don't know what I could have done wrong. I didn't use the coffee. I finally added the egg whites that I didn't use earlier to the 2nd half hoping that would make it fluff up, but I think the mixture was just too hot. I love chocolate and am a chocolate freak, and I found this to be way to strong and it is more like pudding than mousse. There must be a step missing. I would love some feedback, because I really want it to work. I love the crockpot!

I made this today. While I was at the gym (how appropriate) :). I used some belgian dark chocolate chips that I had and it was amazing. Very very rich. I chilled it in martini glasses with a layer of raspberry sauce I had left over from Christmas. I served it with another layer of raspberry sauce on top and some whipped cream. When I make it next time, I'll chill it in champagne flutes instead, it was very rich. But soooo good!

As someone else posted, mine also didn't expand much, so it wasn't as light as some I've had, I might have cooked it too long. Regardless, it was amazingly delicious.

This had a wonderful flavor, but I think my blender is on its last legs and did not have the desired whipping power. Because of that, the mousse did not get fluffy. It was like eating a bowl of truffle. This is not particularly a problem in itself, but it was a bit too dense. That being said, my family had no problem finishing off the entire thing :) If I make it again, I'll pour the mixture into a bowl and use a mixer to see if it will get mousse-y. Thanks for the idea-- any time I can make custard without a water bath in the oven is a great day!

Okay, I had posted before about how this didn't increase in volume for me, and how I had so much more liquid when I blenderized it. I think I figured out what may have been causing this.

I made this last week, and the only thing I did differently was use my NEW crockpot (my hand-me-down 4qt finally died.) My new crockpot cooks much hotter (even on low) than my old crockpot. I had made this by doing about 2 hours on low in my old, but knowing how hot this new crock cooks, I decided to try it on high. It took about 45 minutes to get the bubbles on the top. When I poured it into my blender, I had about 3 cups of liquid, and the chocolate chips were still kind of like soft peanut butter rather than liquidy.

I whipped this up and it didn't double, but it did get about 1.5x bigger, and when I poured it into individual serving cups, I had about 3 more than I normally get. It also turned much more "mousse" than solid/condensed pudding (bowl of truffle, as the previous commenter said!).

So, I think the shorter, hotter cooking was the ticket. Would be curious if other people tried this and had the same results.

@MadisonHomeCooker - Please don't try this in a mixer. I had the same idea last weekend. It doesn't solve the problem and made probably the world's biggest mess. Plus it sucks to get splattered with hot chocolate standing 3 feet away from your mixer where you ran screaming when you realized it was going everywhere, lol.

I've just recently caught the crockpot bug so was so excited to see this.In regards to other peoples comments I was having a similar issue with it not whipping up properly and I think it was to do with the temperature - after it comes ut the crock pot it is pretty warm.To 'trap' the air bubbles in to make it a mousse it needs to be cool enough for the chocolate and fat so let it cool a little first, and then try whipping using a hand mixer in a bowl that's in a cold water or Ice bath. It makes a HUGE difference, the choc mix changes from dark coloured pudding to much lighter whipped mouse in no time - just like whipping whipped cream.